Critics Rave Over Icons
of Evolution: A Response to Published Reviews

When my book Icons of Evolution was published in 2000, critics greeted it with
rave reviews. I have been truly amazed at the outpouring of warmth from some
of my fellow scientists, who have been trying to outdo each other in the superlatives
they bestow on my work.

In my case, however, rave review doesnt mean extravagant
praise, but wild and furious denunciation; the outpouring of warmth has been
a firestorm of vilification; and if the superlatives become any more spiteful
I may have to enter the witness protection program.

It seems that I am guilty of the one unforgivable sin in modern biology: I
am openly critical of Darwinian evolution. In Icons I pointed out that the best-known
evidences for Darwins theory have been exaggerated, distorted
or even faked. I argued that a theory that systematically distorts the evidence
is not good empirical science--perhaps not even science at all. In fact, Darwinism
has all the trappings of a secular religion. Its priests forgive a multitude
of sins in their postulants--manipulating data, overstating results, presenting
assumptions as though they were conclusions--but never the sin of disbelief.

One high priest of Darwinism, Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins, wrote in 1989:
It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not
to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked,
but Id rather not consider that). [1] As far as I know my critics
have not yet called me insane--perhaps because they feel its politically
incorrect to bad-mouth the mentally ill, or perhaps because they might then
have to let me off by reason of insanity. For the past year and a half, however,
defenders of Darwins faith have been roasting me for being ignorant, stupid
and wicked.

I confess that as a former Berkeley anti-war protestor I enjoy controversy,
at least when I think Im right. To someone like me (as Oscar Wilde once
quipped), the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
And talked about I am. The Internet is buzzing with reviews of my book. Amazon.com
alone lists 84 as of this writing, and there are more on various other web sites.
Rather than deal with the seemingly endless Internet reviews, however (many
of which make similar points, anyway), I limit myself here to seven critical
reviews written by biologists and published in periodicals:

Anyone reading (and believing) these reviews would judge me ignorant, and stupid,
and wicked. Lets look at each of these charges in turn.

WELLS IS IGNORANT

To be ignorant is to be uninformed. According to some of my reviewers, I am
embarrassingly uninformed about at least six of the ten icons of evolution:
the Miller-Urey experiment, Darwins tree of life, Haeckels embryos,
peppered moths, four-winged fruit flies, and ape-to-human evolution.

(a) The Miller-Urey experiment

To show how amino acids--lifes building-blocks--could have formed on
the early Earth, the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment used a simulated hydrogen-rich
atmosphere of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor. By 1970, though, most
geochemists were convinced that the Earths primitive atmosphere was nothing
like this, but instead consisted of gasses emitted from volcanoes--mainly carbon
dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor. [2]

According to reviewer David Ussery, however, I failed to notice that Miller
himself describes his own more recent experiments under the conditions now believed
to be those of the primitive atmosphere, where he found he could still generate
many organic compounds. (Ussery, p. 73)

I would thank Ussery for setting me straight, except that the organic compounds
that are produced in this fashion are not amino acids. Instead, when a mixture
of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor is used in a Miller-Urey-type experiment,
the reaction products tend to be toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde and cyanide.

This is not late-breaking news. As I pointed out in my book, Sidney Fox and
Klaus Dose reported in 1977 that no amino acids are produced by sparking a carbon
dioxide-nitrogen-water vapor mixture. In 1983, Miller himself reported that
he could produce no more than a small amount of the simplest amino acid (glycine)
by sparking an atmosphere containing carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, and
then only if free hydrogen was added. And Miller conceded that glycine was the
best he could do in the absence of methane. In 1984, Heinrich Holland confirmed
that mixtures of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor yield no amino acids
at all. [3] Perhaps Ussery was ignorant of these facts.

Reviewers Larry Martin and Massimo Pigliucci argue that the Miller-Urey experiment
has nothing to do with biological evolution, anyway. Martin is a bit puzzled
why this chapter [on Miller-Urey] was included, as the origin of life does not
seem to be an evolutionary question. (Martin, p. 242) And Pigliucci writes:
The Miller experiments and the whole question of the origin of life have
nothing to do with the truth, or lack thereof, concerning evolutionary theory.
(Pigliucci, p. 413)

If I am mistaken on this point, however, I must blame my biology textbooks--all
of which include the origin of life and the Miller-Urey experiment in their
treatments of evolution. For example, Campbell, Reece and Mitchells Biology,
a widely used introductory college textbook, discusses the Miller-Urey experiment
in its unit on The Evolutionary History of Biological Diversity.
The Miller-Urey experiment is also standard fare in upper division and graduate-level
textbooks devoted entirely to biological evolution, such as Futuymas Evolutionary
Biology and Freeman and Herrons Evolutionary Analysis. [4] Perhaps Martin
and Pigliucci should inform the authors of these textbooks that the origin of
life has nothing to do with evolution--then biologists such as I will not be
so misinformed.

Reviewers Kevin Padian and Alan Gishlick, on the other hand, seem to think
that the origin of life is relevant to evolution, but they take me to task for
being ignorant of current studies on primordial oxygen and their relevance to
the Miller-Urey experiment. First they argue that there was little free
oxygen on the early Earth. To prove this, they cite an article by a freelance
science writer about the continuing controversy over primitive oxygen levels.
(Padian & Gishlick, p. 34)

My claim in Icons of Evolution, however, was that the issue of primitive oxygen
remains controversial--a claim amply supported by the article Padian and Gishlick
cite. [5] The problem with biology textbooks is that they routinely ignore the
controversy and tell students that because the Miller-Urey experiment doesnt
work in the presence of oxygen there must not have been any oxygen on the early
Earth. This is putting the cart before the horse: Demonstrating the absence
of oxygen is necessary to establish the relevance of the experiment; assuming
the relevance of the experiment doesnt demonstrate the absence of oxygen.

Apparently wanting to cover all their bases, Padian and Gishlick argue that
the controversy over primitive oxygen doesnt matter anyway, because amino
acids could be synthesized even if small amounts of oxygen were present.
(Padian & Gishlick, p. 34)

To support this claim Padian and Gishlick cite another article--this one, at
least, written by a scientist rather than a science writer. But the articles
only support for their claim is a secondhand reference to an obscure report
from Slovakia. If the Slovakian report is right, this means that defenders of
the Miller-Urey experiment can relinquish their cart-before-the-horse reasoning--but
only if they first concede that what they have been telling students for years
about the inhibitory role of oxygen is false. [6]

Having said this, I nevertheless admit that I am quite ignorant about the origin
of life. But so is everyone else. Isnt it time we admitted our ignorance
to our students, instead of continuing to give them the impression that the
Miller-Urey experiment shows how lifes building-blocks could have originated
on the early Earth?

(b) Darwins tree of life

According to Darwins theory, all living things are modified descendants
of one or a few original forms. If the theory were true, then the history of
life would begin with an original ancestral species diverging into two different
species, then different genera, different families, and so on--with major differences
appearing only after millions of generations. The resulting pattern would be
like a branching tree--what Darwin called the great Tree of Life.

Yet when animals first appear in the fossil record at the beginning of the
geological period known as the Cambrian, most of the major differences--the
basic body plans, or phyla--are already present. In the modern world,
the phyla are represented by mollusks (e.g., snails and octopuses), arthropods
(e.g., crabs and insects), echinoderms (e.g., starfish and sea urchins), chordates
(e.g., fish and humans), and various kinds of worms, among others. These and
many other phyla appeared in what is now known as the Cambrian explosion
with an abruptness that is inconsistent with a branching-tree pattern. Darwin
himself acknowledged it to be a serious problem for his theory. [7]

According to reviewer Ussery, however, I am mistaken about the suddenness of
the Cambrian explosion, because we see a gradual change in the fossil
record from the earliest bacteria fossils of 3.8 billion years ago to
the Cambrian fossils of about 500 million years ago. Thus there
is a large body of fossil evidence supporting evolution. (Ussery, p. 73)
Reviewers Padian and Gishlick similarly argue that there is nothing sudden
about metazoan [i.e., multicellular animal] appearances in the Cambrian,
because metazoan eggs, embryos, and bilaterian trace fossils [tracks apparently
made by burrowing worms] are present at least 40 (and maybe as many as
70) million years before the Cambrian explosion. (Padian &
Gishlick, p. 35)

But the three billion years to which Ussery refers show only single-celled
organisms until just before the Cambrian explosion. Not single-celled organisms
gradually becoming multicellular animals--just single-celled organisms. The
animal eggs and embryos mentioned by Padian and Gishlick are sponges--one phylum
that everyone agrees (and I point out in my book) was present before the Cambrian
explosion. And the burrowing worms which presumably made trace fossils may have
represented one more phylum that appeared just before the Cambrian. (Some experts
think there may also have been jellyfish just before the Cambrian.) So not all
animal phyla appeared suddenly in the Cambrian explosion--just most of them.

To put gradual and sudden in context here, imagine
yourself standing at one end of a football field. Let the goal line where you
are standing represent 3.8 billion years ago (when single-celled organisms are
thought to have originated), and let the other end of the football field represent
the present day. As you walk from one goal line to the other, you see only single-celled
organisms as you pass the 25-yard line, then midfield, then the 75-yard line.
Only as you approach the 84-yard line do you notice the first multicellular
organisms--some sponges, and perhaps some worms and jellyfish. Then, in the
space of a single stride, most of the other animal phyla appear, and most of
these are still with you when you reach the other goal line.

This is not a branching tree pattern: no animals for 5/6 of the history of
life, then most modern body plans in a flash. Some paleontologists have aptly
compared this pattern to a lawn instead of a tree. [8]

Reviewer Eugenie Scott also argues that I am mistaken about the suddenness
of the Cambrian explosion, not because there is a long history of animal evolution
before the Cambrian, but because many major groups appear after the Cambrian.
According to Scott, the implication that most modern phyla and classes
occur in the Cambrian doesnt hold true for either animals or plants.
Wells neglects to mention that insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals
are all post-Cambrian. (Scott, p. 2258)

But I never implied that the Cambrian explosion included plants; indeed, there
is no such thing as a plant phylum (the major groups of plants are called divisions).
Nor did I ever imply that insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals
appeared in the Cambrian explosion--though the phyla to which these organisms
belong (arthropods and chordates) did appear abruptly in the Cambrian. So what
Scott criticizes is something I never claimed. She cant fault me for stuff
I did write, so she tries to fault me for stuff I didnt write.

Taking the opposite tack from Scott, reviewer Martin implicitly acknowledges
that the major groups of animals did appear at the outset, but he argues that
this is exactly what we would expect. Martin writes: Actually, the fossil
record and theory make a good fit. The higher a unit of classification is placed
in the hierarchy, the earlier it is supposed to have appeared in time. Phyla
are higher taxonomic levels and might be expected to appear before modern classes
and orders. That is exactly what we see. (Martin, p. 243)

But Martin is looking through the wrong end of the telescope. He sees a single
phylum and surmises correctly that Darwins theory predicts the initial
appearance of one or a few species in that phylum, followed by diversification
into many different species within the same phylum. The problem with the Cambrian
explosion, however, is that more than a dozen phylum-level designations appear
together at the outset. Where is the evidence that they evolved from a single
ancestral phylum, as Darwins theory claims?

Padian and Gishlick, like Martin, also suggest that it is not surprising to
see phylum-level differences appear suddenly at the beginning of the Cambrian.
This is rather comical, since Padian and Gishlick just finished arguing that
there is nothing sudden about the Cambrian explosion. Covering all their bases
once again, they claim that recent advances in genetics explain how body plans
emerged relatively suddenly: Wells entirely overlooks the explosive field
of evolutionary developmental biology when he ignores the fact that evolutionary
theory does not require the slow accumulation of small changes to produce body
plan differences. Relatively early-acting, small, genetic changes in genes that
affect features of body plans such as axis orientation, segmentation, and appendage
formation can have substantial and immediate phenotypic effects. This is especially
surprising because Wells wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on embryology. (Padian
& Gishlick, p. 35)

It certainly would be surprising if I had entirely overlooked my own field.
Fortunately for my reputation, however, Padian and Gishlick are mistaken in
their claim that I ignore early-acting, small genetic changes in
development: I discuss them in my treatment of the four-winged fruit fly icon,
below.

Now, I acknowledge that Martin and Padian are fossil experts, and Im
not. I freely admit my ignorance about the fine details of their field, vertebrate
paleontology. But the geologically abrupt appearance of most animal phyla (not
just vertebrates) in the Cambrian explosion is not a fine detail; it is one
of the most obvious and undeniable features of the fossil record. Changing the
subject from animals to bacteria or plants, pointing out that sponges are an
exception to the other phyla, and playing semantic games with taxonomic terminology
cannot alter this brute fact.

(c) Haeckels embryos

Aware of the problems with the fossil record, Darwin thought that the best
evidence for his theory came from embryology. He believed that early vertebrate
embryos are closely similar, but become, when fully developed, widely
dissimilar. He concluded that this was not just evidence for common ancestry--it
was by far the strongest single class of facts in favor of his theory.
In the 1860s, German Darwinist Ernst Haeckel made drawings of vertebrate embryos
to illustrate these facts. Yet (as his contemporaries pointed out)
Haeckel faked his drawings: Vertebrate embryos actually start out looking very
different, then converge somewhat in appearance midway through development before
becoming more different again as adults. Haeckel misrepresented the midpoint
of development as the first stage, then he distorted the embryos at this point
to make them look much more similar than they really are. [9]

Reviewer Jerry Coyne focuses most of his remarks (at least, most of the few
that actually deal with science) on my treatment of vertebrate embryos--a daring
move on his part, since Im a vertebrate embryologist and hes a fruit
fly geneticist. Coyne begins by re-stating the standard view: As Darwin
first realized, some aspects of vertebrate development--especially transitory
features--provide strong evidence for common ancestry and evolution. Embryos
of different vertebrates tend to resemble one another in early stages, but diverge
as development proceeds, with more closely related species diverging less widely.
This conclusion has been supported by 150 years of research. Coyne then
takes me to task for foolishly trying to refute this mountain of work.
(Coyne, p. 745)

Naturally, I would be grateful to Coyne for correcting me about this--if he
were right. But his claim that vertebrate embryos are most similar in their
early stages is dead wrong. As British zoologist Adam Sedgwick wrote in 1894,
the claim is not in accordance with the facts of development. Comparing
a dogfish with a chicken, Sedgwick wrote: There is no stage of development
in which the unaided eye would fail to distinguish between them with ease.
It is not necessary to emphasize further these embryonic differences,
Sedgwick continued, because every embryologist knows that they exist and
could bring forward innumerable instances of them. I need only say with regard
to them that a species is distinct and distinguishable from its allies from
the very earliest stages all through the development. (Emphasis in the
original) [10]

Many other vertebrate embryologists have noted the same thing. In 1976, Dartmouth
College embryologist William Ballard wrote that it is only by semantic
tricks and subjective selection of evidence, by bending the facts
of nature, that one can argue that the earliest stages of vertebrate embryos
are more similar than their adults. And in 1987, Canadian embryologist
Richard Elinson wrote that early developmental patterns in frogs, chicks and
mice are radically different. [11]

So the mountain of work Coyne invokes actually buries his claim.
But that doesnt seem to bother him, because (in a cover-all-your-bases
move worthy of Padian and Gishlick) he acknowledges that vertebrate embryos
are not most similar in their early stages: Wells also notes that the
earliest vertebrate embryos (mere balls of cells) are often less similar to
one another than they are at subsequent stages when they possess more complex
features. Like other evolutionary biologists, Coyne argues that the dissimilarity
of early vertebrate embryos can be explained in the light of Darwins theory,
since the earliest stages of vertebrate embryos show adaptation
to the conditions of their existence. Coyne even regards this as evidence for
the theory: Wells repeatedly fails to grasp the evidential value of phenomena
[i.e., dissimilarities in early embryos] that can be understood only as the
result of a historical process. (Coyne, p. 745)

So let me get this straight. Some of the strongest evidence for Darwins
theory is that vertebrate embryos are most similar in their early stages--except
that theyre not. But if we just interpret the embryos dissimilarities
in the light of Darwins theory, they then have evidential value.

Oh, now I get it! Darwins theory wins no matter what the evidence shows.
Apparently I was just ignorant of how evolutionary biology works.

(d) Peppered moths

Peppered moths come in a light variety and a dark variety. Before 1800 the
light variety was ubiquitous, but during the industrial revolution the dark
variety became much more common. According to evolutionary theory, the shift
occurred because of natural selection: Dark moths were better camouflaged against
pollution-darkened tree trunks, and thus more likely to survive bird predation.
In the 1950s, British physician Bernard Kettlewell released captive moths onto
nearby tree trunks and observed as birds ate the more visible ones. He then
released moths that had been marked on the underside with a tiny spot of paint.
When he later recaptured some of the marked moths, the proportion matching the
color of nearby tree trunks was significantly higher than in the batch he had
released, consistent with the camouflage-predation theory. The peppered moth
story soon became the classic textbook case of natural selection in action.

In the 1980s, however, scientists discovered that peppered moths rarely rest
on tree trunks in the wild, and a growing number of biologists now question
the classic story. For example, University of Chicago evolutionary biologist
Jerry Coyne (yep, the same Coyne cited above) wrote in 1998: From time
to time, evolutionists re-examine a classic experimental study and find, to
their horror, that it is flawed or downright wrong. According to Coyne,
the fact that peppered moths do not rest on tree trunks alone invalidates
Kettlewells release-and-recapture experiments, as moths were released
by placing them directly onto tree trunks. [12]

Several reviewers of Icons of Evolution (not including Coyne, of course) fault
me for getting the moths resting-places wrong. According to Scott, Wells
argues that moths dont rest on tree trunks, but he ignores
research showing that moths rest on all parts of trees (including the trunks).
(Scott, p. 2258) And Padian and Gishlick write: Wells erroneously claims
that moths do not rest on tree trunks, although research has shown that moths
rest on trunks 26% of the time, and on trunk/branch junctions 43% of the time
(Majerus 1998, p 123). (Padian & Gishlick, p. 36)

But Scott doesnt cite any research, and the research she says I ignore
shows clearly that exposed tree trunks are not the natural resting-places of
peppered moths. For example, in 1984 Kauri Mikkola reported that the species
probably only exceptionally rests on tree trunks; and in 1987 Rory Howlett
and Michael Majerus wrote that they were convinced that exposed areas
of tree trunks are not an important resting site for peppered moths. [13]

What about the statistics Padian and Gishlick attribute to Majerus? Majeruss
1998 book lists a total of 47 moths found in the wild from 1964 to 1996. Of
these, 6 were found on exposed tree trunks, 6 on unexposed trunks, 20 in trunk/branch
joints, and 15 on branches. Padian and Gishlick obtain their percentages from
the first two categories (13% plus 13%) and the third category (43%). But Majeruss
47 moths are not--and are not claimed to be--an unbiased sample representing
peppered moths in general. In the decades since Kettlewells experiments,
scientists have counted tens of thousands of peppered moths; one 1977 paper
alone listed data for 8,426 moths in southern Britain between 1952 and 1974.
[14] These thousands, however, were found in artificial traps, not in normal
resting positions. Researchers suspect that the moths normally spend the day
hidden under horizontal branches high in the trees, where they cannot be seen.

So even if all 47 of Majeruss moths had been found on tree trunks, they
would still represent less than 1% of all peppered moths studied during the
same period. Trying to determine the normal resting-places of peppered moths
by doing statistics on Majeruss sample is a bit like trying to determine
the normal habitats of ocean fish by doing statistics only on those spotted
from a boat. But of course Majerus knows this, which is why he (unlike Padian
and Gishlick) concludes that peppered moths do not naturally rest in exposed
positions on tree trunks. [15]

Before biologists discovered that peppered moths dont normally rest on
tree trunks, many experiments were conducted by pinning or gluing dead moths
to tree trunks. This practice should have been abandoned, however, once biologists
knew that it fails to test the camouflage-predation theory under natural conditions.
In Icons of Evolution, I criticized textbooks that continue to use staged photos
of moths on tree trunks to illustrate natural selection--though I stopped short
of calling them fraudulent.

Yet according to Scott: Researchers glued moths to trees to test whether
birds differentially prey upon moths that contrasted against their surface,
an experiment necessary to test the hypothesis of bird predation. This is not
fraud, its research. (Scott, p. 2258) And Padian and Gishlick write:
Wells then pretends righteous indignation about fraudulent,
staged textbook photographs of light and dark moths against light
and dark backgrounds. But these photographs merely illustrate the differential
camouflage that field experiments tested--a reasonable and expected part of
science. Can Wells be so ignorant of this investigative tradition or the purpose
of an illustration? (Padian & Gishlick, p. 36)

In the investigative tradition that I was taught, however, field research is
supposed to approximate natural conditions as closely as possible. Since the
surface on which peppered moths rest is a key factor in the camouflage-predation
theory, the tradition I learned would require that experiments be conducted
using the moths normal resting-places--and that textbook illustrations
portray those resting-places accurately.

Apparently, evolutionary biology relies on a different investigative tradition--one
in which understanding nature is less important than finding ways to prop up
Darwins theory. Maybe Padian and Gishlick are right, and I was ignorant
of that tradition. But Im learning.

(e) Four-winged fruit flies

According to neo-Darwinism (the modern form of Darwins theory), evolution
results primarily from two factors: natural selection, which acts on variations
already present in a population, and genetic mutations, which supposedly provide
new variations which then become raw materials for evolution.

Since natural selection favors variations that benefit the organism, and tends
to eliminate those that harm it, only beneficial mutations can provide raw materials
for evolution. Some mutations benefit certain organisms by enhancing their ability
to resist toxins (antibiotic resistance in bacteria is perhaps the best-known
example of this). Such mutations typically act by deforming a molecule involved
in the organisms response to the toxin. Since organisms with the deformed
molecule may survive in the presence of the toxin while others perish, such
mutations are favored by natural selection. But Darwinian evolution needs a
lot more than deformed molecules to explain the origin of new organs and body
plans--it needs beneficial changes in anatomy.

To show how genetic mutations can provide raw materials for anatomical evolution,
many biology textbooks feature pictures of a four-winged fruit fly. Fruit flies
normally have two wings and two balancers--tiny appendages behind
the wings that enable the insect to stabilize itself in flight. A skilled geneticist,
however, can combine three separate DNA mutations to produce a fly in which
the balancers are transformed into a normal-looking second pair of wings. Since
some insects have four wings instead of two, the four-winged fruit fly seems
at first glance to provide evidence for how one kind of insect evolved into
another.

As I pointed out in Icons of Evolution, however, fruit flies with four normal-looking
wings do not occur in nature; they must be engineered in a modern genetics laboratory.
Furthermore, the extra wings have no muscles, so the mutant fly is a hopeless
cripple that has great difficulty flying or mating. Outside the laboratory,
natural selection would quickly eliminate it. Far from being raw material for
evolution, the four-winged fruit fly is an evolutionary dead end. [16]

Reviewer Raff objects to my characterization of this icon: Wells misuses
the science he learned at Berkeley, he writes, since despite some
pictures of suitably iconic four-winged Drosophila [the generic name for fruit
flies], the discussion of genes and development in Icons of Evolution
is shabby and misleading. (Raff, p. 374)

Raff doesnt say exactly what he finds shabby and misleading. Presumably,
though, its not my discussion of genes and development in four-winged
fruit flies, since that part of my chapter was reviewed before publication by
none other than Edward B. Lewis, the Nobel Prize-winning geneticist who made
the first four-winged fruit fly. Although Lewis doesnt endorse my criticisms
of Darwinian evolution, he was kind enough to help me get my facts right.

Reviewers Padian and Gishlick (as we saw above in the discussion of the Cambrian
explosion) object that Wells entirely overlooks the explosive field of
evolutionary developmental biology when he ignores the fact that relatively
early-acting, small, genetic changes in genes [can] affect features of body
plans such as axis orientation, segmentation, and appendage formation.
(Padian & Gishlick, p. 35)

Since my entire chapter on four-winged fruit flies dealt with genetic changes
that affect appendage formation, its difficult to see how Padian and Gishlick
justify their claim that I ignore them. But if mutations affecting appendage
formation are a problem for neo-Darwinism, mutations affecting axis formation
and segmentation are even worse. As I pointed out in my book, developmental
geneticists in the 1970s and 1980s used a technique known as saturation
mutagenesis to screen for all possible mutations affecting embryo development
in the fruit fly. Although this work shed considerable light on the role of
genes in development (and led to some well-deserved Nobel Prizes), it also showed
that mutations affecting axis formation and segmentation are invariably harmful,
and indeed often fatal. [17] Such mutations cannot provide raw materials for
evolution.

Reviewer Ussery feels that my ignorance of molecular biology extends further
than developmental genetics. He writes: Does Wells really believe that
it is not true that DNA makes RNA makes protein? I am seriously concerned
that Wells claims himself to be a molecular biologist. (Ussery, p. 74)

Of course, I have never implied that DNA doesnt make RNA, or that RNA
doesnt make protein. In fact, a main point of my chapter on the four-winged
fruit fly is precisely that DNA (through RNA) does make proteins--but that proteins
alone are insufficient to specify the body plan of an organism, just as building
materials are insufficient to specify the floor plan of a house. Defective 2x4s
can produce a deformed house, and mutant proteins can produce a deformed organism.
Mutant proteins might even explain how some organisms might have lost previously
existing features. But they do not account for changes in body plans. When it
comes to the evolution of new morphologies or body plans, the question remains:
Where is the evidence that DNA mutations can alter anatomy in beneficial ways
and thereby provide raw materials for evolution?

It seems to me that this is a reasonable question. Despite my Berkeley Ph.D.,
I certainly dont know everything about genes, development and evolution
(after all, who does?). But until I actually see some good evidence for beneficial
anatomical mutations, Ill keep asking the question.

Come to think of it, shouldnt all biologists be asking it?

(f) Human evolution

The evidence for human evolution will always be meager in comparison with evidence
drawn from other species. Experiments involving mutation and selection that
can be performed with bacteria, animals and plants cannot be done with humans,
because they would be both impractical and unethical. So evidence for the processes
of evolution necessarily comes from organisms other than human beings.

As for patterns in the history of life: The vast majority of animal fossils
are marine invertebrates. Fossils of land vertebrates are comparatively few
and far between, and fossils of the ape-like creatures that supposedly evolved
into humans are so exceedingly rare that their discovery is usually announced
on the front pages of newspapers.

According to Scott, I exaggerate the scarcity of fossil relating to human origins.
She complains that I ignore the many significant discoveries of the past
two decades, giving readers the incorrect impression that the human
fossil record is unusually weak. (Scott, p. 2258) Yet Martin writes: Wells
seems to accept the fossil evidence at face value, so that the story of
human evolution remains intact using evidence that he allows. (Martin,
pp. 244-245) Coynes only objection is that I can only mumble
when faced with a series of hominid fossils showing transitions from ape-like
to modern human traits over 4 million years. (Coyne, p. 745) And Pigliucci
writes: Wells, as much as he desperately tries to debunk the ape-to-human
icon, is backed against the wall by his own knowledge of the fossil
record. (Pigliucci, p. 413)

So reviewers Martin, Coyne and Pigliucci dont think that Im ignorant
of the fossil evidence for human origins; they complain that Im unwilling
to grant that it demonstrates Darwinian evolution. And theyre right: Although
a series of fossils may be consistent with Darwins theory of descent with
modification, I do not think it is sufficient evidence for that theory. And
Im not the only biologist who thinks this.

Henry Gee, chief science writer for Nature, wrote in 1999: The intervals
of time that separate fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite
about their possible connection through ancestry and descent. Although
Gee is a believer in Darwins theory, he acknowledged that one must assume
the truth of the theory when studying human origins, because by its very nature
the fossil record cannot corroborate it. Gee concluded: To take a line
of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis
that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime
story--amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific. [18]

I would go further than Gee, and point out that a series of fossils is just
as consistent with intelligent design as it is with Darwinian evolution. Even
if we had a complete fossil record of all animals that lived before the advent
of human beings, it would not establish that the latter evolved from the former
through descent with modification. This point was unwittingly illustrated by
Ohio State University biologist Tim Berra in his 1990 book, Evolution and the
Myth of Creationism. Berra compared the fossil record to a series of automobile
models: If you compare a 1953 and a 1954 Corvette, side by side, then
a 1954 and a 1955 model, and so on, the descent with modification is overwhelmingly
obvious. This is what paleoanthropologists [people who study human origins]
do with fossils. (Emphasis in the original) [19]

But we all know that automobiles are designed, so Berras analogy makes
it clear that a sequence of fossil forms can be explained just as well by design
as by Darwinian evolution. This is why one must first assume Darwins theory
in order to get an evolutionary story out of the fossil evidence. [20] As Gee
acknowledged, however, such a story is untestable, and thus has no more scientific
validity than a bedtime story.

(g) Wells is factually accurate

In my humble opinion, my critics have failed to show that my disbelief in Darwinian
doctrine is due to ignorance of the facts. Indeed, reviewer Martin acknowledges
that Icons of Evolution is factually accurate. He concludes: If
Wells made a technical error, I missed it. (Martin, pp. 242, 246)

At the same time, I freely admit my ignorance about many things. I am ignorant
of how life originated--but so is everybody else. I am ignorant of many details
of the fossil record--but the abrupt appearance of major animal groups in the
Cambrian explosion is not a detail, it is one of the fossil records most
obvious features. I am ignorant of many aspects of vertebrate embryology, despite
my Ph.D. in the field--but I do know that what Darwin called the strongest
single class of facts in favor of his theory is not factual at all. I
am ignorant about many things concerning peppered moths--but I know enough about
the investigative tradition in science to recognize the phoniness
of statistics proving that the moths rest where experts say they
dont. I am ignorant of many things in developmental genetics, despite
my Ph.D. training--but I do know that four-winged fruit flies are hopeless monsters,
not raw materials for evolution. Finally, I am ignorant of many aspects of human
origins--but I know that fossils alone are not sufficient to demonstrate descent
with modification.

So the problem is not my ignorance. Perhaps its my stupidity. Lets
see.

WELLS IS STUPID

Ignorance is a lack of knowledge, but stupidity is a lack of mental ability.
A stupid person cant think straight. According to some of my reviewers,
I disbelieve in Darwinian evolution because I confuse unexplained
with unexplainable, I illogically criticize evolution because of
a few textbook mistakes, and I fail to grasp the proper relationship between
scientific theories and the evidence.

(a) Confusing unexplained with unexplainable

One of the icons of evolution I discussed in my book is homology in vertebrate
limbs. A bat has wings for flying, a porpoise has flippers for swimming, a horse
has legs for running, and a human has hands for grasping, yet the bone structures
in their forelimbs are remarkably similar. Pre-Darwinian biologists called these
structural similarities homologies and attributed them to a common
archetype, or design. Darwin attributed them to inheritance from a common ancestor.

How can we determine which is correct? As we saw in Berras Corvette analogy
above, mere similarities are not evidence for ancestry and descent; they are
equally compatible with design. The only way to show that the Darwinian explanation
of homology is correct is to demonstrate a natural mechanism. Only by showing
how one car model could change into another through unguided natural processes
(such as rust and wind) could we show that they evolved in a Darwinian fashion,
without the need for design.

In the case of living things, two natural mechanisms have been proposed to
explain homology: developmental pathways (with homologous features originating
from similar cells and processes in the embryo), and genes (with homologous
features being programmed by similar DNA sequences). But neither one of these
proposed mechanisms fits the evidence: As a general rule, homologous features
are not correlated with either similar developmental pathways or similar genes.
Therefore, the Darwinian explanation (common ancestry) remains uncorroborated,
and the classical alternative (common design) remains a viable option.

Reviewer Raff begins his criticism of my treatment of homology by quoting an
essay I wrote with Paul Nelson in 1997: Homology cannot be attributed
to similar developmental pathways any more than it can be attributed to similar
genes. So far, the naturalistic mechanisms proposed to explain homology do not
fit the evidence. Raff continues: What logical gymnastics! If its
unexplained, it must be unexplainable by evolutionary biology. If its
unexplainable by evolutionary biology, it must require an intelligent designer.
(Raff, p. 373)

The logical gymnastics, however, are Raffs--not mine. My argument is
that the common ancestry explanation for homology has not been empirically
demonstrated, so the common design explanation cannot be ruled out.
Is homology unexplained by evolutionary biology? Yes. Is it unexplainable?
I dont know. If homology is unexplainable by evolutionary biology, does
it require an intelligent designer? Perhaps, if those are the only two possibilities.
But I did not argue this in Icons of Evolution. I merely asserted that because
Darwinism has not explained homology, it cannot exclude alternative explanations
such as intelligent design.

Most biology textbooks, however, give the impression that the issue has been
settled. They do this, not by providing evidence, but by defining homology as
similarity due to common ancestry. Yet the same textbooks also claim that homology
is some of the best evidence for common ancestry. In effect, they claim that
similarity due to common ancestry is due to common ancestry. [21]

Is that what evolutionary biologists mean by thinking straight?

(b) Criticizing evolution because of a few textbook mistakes

According to several of my reviewers, I illogically try to discredit evolutionary
theory on the grounds that textbooks contain a few mistakes.

Coyne writes: Wellss book rests entirely on a flawed syllogism:
hence, textbooks illustrate evolution with examples; these examples are sometimes
presented in incorrect or misleading ways; therefore evolution is a fiction.
(Coyne, p. 745) Pigliucci states the same thing, but more strongly: Because
there are omissions, simplifications, and inaccuracies in some general biology
textbooks, obviously the modern theory of evolution must be wrong. This is the
astounding line of reasoning that is the backbone of Jonathan Wellss Icons
of Evolution. (Pigliucci, pp. 411-412) Padian and Gishlick make the same
point even more strongly--heavily seasoned with scorn: The Whine Expert:
Wells reminds us of those kids who used to write to the letters page of Superman
comics many years ago. Dear Editor, they would write, you
made a boo-boo! On page 6 you colored Supermans cape green, but it should
be red! Okay, kid, mistakes happen, but did it really affect the story?
Wells cannot hurt the story of evolution; like a petulant child, he can only
throw tantrums. (Padian & Gishlick, p. 37)

If the icons of evolution were really just a few textbook boo-boos,
however, the proper response from evolutionary biologists would be to correct
or remove them. In November 2000, John L. Hubisz issued a Packard Foundation
report on middle school physical science textbooks. Hubisz found many mistakes
in the textbooks, the most-publicized (and funniest) of which was a photograph
of singer Linda Ronstadt with a caption identifying her as a silicon crystal
doped with arsenic. The caption was supposed to accompany a drawing of a silicon
crystal on the following page, but it had been mistakenly shifted to the Ronstadt
photograph instead. The publisher immediately moved to correct the mistake in
future editions. [22]

Imagine, though, the following scenario: The mis-identification of Ronstadt
as a silicon crystal is found year after year, in almost all physics textbooks
from middle school up through graduate school; the mis-identification is consistent
with other material in the text promoting the theory that human life is based
on silicon rather than carbon; and the mis-identification is vigorously defended
by advocates of the theory. Obviously, we would no longer be dealing with a
textbook mistake, but a systematic effort to promote the theory that human life
is silicon-based.

This is what we see with the icons of evolution: Several of them grossly exaggerate
or distort the truth, while others are patently false. Yet they are found year
after year in almost all textbooks dealing with evolutionary theory, and they
invariably accompany other material promoting that theory. When someone points
out that the textbook examples misrepresent the facts, Darwinists dont
rush to correct them. Instead, they rush to defend them.

It is not I but my critics who portray the icons of evolution as innocent mistakes--and
they do so in order to make me look stupid for allegedly trying to discredit
an entire theory because of a few isolated mistakes. In my book, however, I
argued that the icons reflect badly on evolutionary theory precisely because
they are not isolated mistakes. When my critics defend the icons (as we saw
them do above), they refute their own argument that the icons are simply textbook
errors. And when my critics defend the icons by denying the reality of the Cambrian
explosion, distorting the facts of vertebrate embryology, misrepresenting the
normal resting-places of peppered moths, ignoring the harmful effects of anatomical
mutations, and pretending that fossils alone can establish ancestor-descendant
relationships, they further substantiate my argument that the icons of evolution
are part of a systematic effort to exaggerate, distort, or even fake the evidence
to prop up Darwinian theory.

So the icons of evolution are not just boo-boos. Maybe I am stupid--but
Im not that stupid.

c) Failing to grasp the relationship between scientific theories and evidence

According to reviewer Pigliucci, Im stupid not only because of my astounding
line of reasoning that finds fault with evolutionary theory on the basis
of a few textbook mistakes, but also because I think that removing a few pieces
of evidence refutes a scientific theory. He writes: Perhaps the most damning
point about Wellss book is the general conception of science that emerges
from it. Given his scientific training, Wells should have known better. It is
clear that the education system at Berkeley has failed in his case. Pigliucci
continues: Wellss whole argument hinges on the idea of the crucial
proof of a scientific theory. If that pillar falls, the whole enterprise is
useless. Now, Wells is far from showing that any of the icons are in fact fundamentally
flawed or represent an insurmountable obstacle for evolutionists. But even if
he succeeded, Wellss conception of science is so simplistic as being labeled
by philosophers of science as naïve falsificationism. Falsificationism,
it may be recalled, is the idea proposed by philosopher Karl Popper. (Emphasis
in the original) (Pigliucci, pp. 413-414)

Popper maintained that a theory is not scientific unless it makes claims that
can be falsified--i.e., proven wrong. For Popper, falsificationism is the hallmark
of science. Naïve falsificationism, however, looks for isolated anomalies
where an otherwise successful theory seems inconsistent with the evidence. Every
scientific theory encounters such anomalies; often they turn out to be experimental
artifacts, or they disappear as more data are collected. If I were to reject
evolutionary theory on the basis of a few isolated anomalies while ignoring
mountains of corroborating evidence, Pigliucci would be right to call me a naïve
falsificationist.

The real evidence for evolution, Pigliucci argues,
is not to be found in individual experiments, and it is certainly not
to be expected in textbooks for beginning students. Rather, it is found in the
plethora of facts about the biotic world that accumulate every year in the primary
literature, facts that make no sense outside of the evolutionary paradigm. Components
of this paradigm are constantly being tested in countless laboratories around
the world, and--for the most part--the theory has withstood the test of time.
More important, this is the way science really works. (Pigliucci, p. 414)

But where are the mountains of evidence for Darwinian evolution? There are
two basic elements in the theory: (1) the notion that all living things share
common ancestors, and (2) the notion that differences in living things are due
mainly to natural selection acting on random variations (with genetic mutations
supplying new variations). Darwinists often claim that the first is so well
corroborated that we are justified in calling it a fact, while the
second is acknowledged to be a theory, generally well supported
but still debated in its details.

Common ancestry is surely true at some levels. We directly observe it within
species. All human beings are presumably descended from common human ancestors
in the distant past. Members of the cat family can interbreed, so maybe they
are descended from a common feline ancestor. But do bacteria, fungi, plants
and animals all share a common ancestor? Maybe not. It depends on the evidence.

In Icons of Evolution, I questioned the evidence for common ancestry at the
level of the animal phyla. The principal lines of evidence are the fossil record,
homology, embryology, and molecular comparisons. Yet (as we have seen) one of
the most striking features of the fossil record is the Cambrian explosion, which
provides no support for the common ancestry of the animal phyla. Homology remains
unexplained by evolutionary biology, so even at the level of vertebrate classes
it cannot be used to distinguish between common ancestry and common design.
And the early embryonic similarities that supposedly demonstrate the common
ancestry of the vertebrates turn out to be non-existent, while embryos of other
phyla are even less similar.

The evidence from molecular comparisons is also problematic. As biologist Michael
Lynch wrote in 1999: Clarification of the phylogenetic [i.e., ancestor-descendant]
relationships of the major animal phyla has been an elusive problem, with analyses
based on different genes and even different analyses based on the same genes
yielding a diversity of phylogenetic trees. [23]

Judging from these lines of evidence, the common ancestry of the major animal
groups is not a fact--its not even a well-supported hypothesis.
If (as Pigliucci claims) there is other evidence from countless laboratories
around the world, where is it?

As for the supposed processes of evolution, natural selection and random variation:
All observed cases of natural selection (such as Darwins finches, another
icon discussed in my book) show only minor changes within existing species,
like the changes domestic breeders have been observing for centuries. There
is no evidence that selection can turn chickens into turkeys, much less turn
bacteria into animals. Furthermore, as we saw, the most widely advertised anatomical
mutant--the four-winged fruit fly--is an evolutionary dead end.

Selection and mutation have been studied most extensively in bacteria, because
it is possible to experiment with millions of organisms and thousands of generations
in a relatively short time. Yet as British bacteriologist Alan H. Linton wrote
just recently: Throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there
is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another.
[24]

It is precisely because evidence for the two basic elements of Darwins
theory is so thin that my critics defend the icons of evolution rather than
replace them with better examples. Pigliucci and his fellow Darwinists are not
protecting their theory from naïve falsificationism--they are protecting
it from falsification altogether. One doesnt have to be a Popperian to
see that this is not good empirical science--and perhaps not science at all.

So, if the education system at Berkeley failed in my case, its not because
Im too stupid to grasp the difference between naïve falsification
and no falsification. Something else must be wrong with me.

(d) Leaving the True Path

Reviewer Scott indicates that she, like Martin, found many factual statements
in my book largely correct. She writes: Individual sentences in Icons
are usually technically correct, but they are artfully strung together to take
the reader off the path of real evolutionary biology and into a thicket of misunderstanding.
(Scott, p. 2258)

So Im not ignorant, because my statements are technically correct; and
Im not stupid, because my arguments are artful rather than illogical.
The bottom line is that I take readers off the True Path. But if I dont
do this out of ignorance or stupidity, then I must be doing it out of wickedness.

WELLS IS WICKED

(a) Evil motivations?

Reviewers Coyne, Pigliucci, Ussery, Raff, Padian and Gishlick all make a point
of mentioning a statement I made in 1994 (available on the internet) that my
studies and prayers years earlier had convinced me that I should devote
my life to destroying Darwinism. [25] (Coyne actually begins and ends
with this point, devoting about a quarter of his review to it.)

In my 1994 statement, I criticized Darwinism for claiming that living
things originated without Gods purposeful, creative activity. It
is no secret that Darwinism has such implications. As Oxford Universitys
Richard Dawkins wrote in 1986, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually
fulfilled atheist. And as Tufts Universitys Daniel Dennett wrote
in 1995, Darwins theory is a universal acid that corrodes
the fabric of our most fundamental beliefs--especially belief in
God. [26]

As a theology graduate student in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I learned
that the anti-religious implications of Darwinism have profoundly influenced
modern theologians. Even with only an undergraduate background in science, however,
I knew that the evidence for Darwinism was not as solid as the theologians seemed
to think. If Darwinism were solid science, its anti-religious implications would
(in my opinion) be inescapable. The more I learned, however, the more it seemed
to me that Darwinism was just old-fashioned materialistic philosophy masquerading
as modern empirical science. Because of its profound and harmful consequences
for religion, science and culture, I decided to devote my life to criticizing
this philosophy and destroying its domination of our educational system.

That was, and still is, my motivation. I have never concealed it.

The question is: How relevant is my motivation? A zealous prosecutor may be
committed to bringing down organized crime, but his commitment may be motivated
by any number of things--such as a righteous devotion to justice, or a self-serving
desire for personal advancement. Once hes in the courtroom, however, the
only thing that really matters is the evidence. The mobs lawyers can attack
the prosecutors motivations all they want, but if they cant refute
his facts, their clients may be convicted. In science, too, what matters is
the evidence.

Darwinisms defenders often claim that nothing in biology makes sense
except in the light of evolution. But this is like a defense attorney telling
a jury that nothing makes sense except in the light of his arguments. Ultimately,
the jury must reach their verdict on the basis of the facts before them. So
it is in science. Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evidence.
That is why the icons of evolution are so vigorously defended--even to the point
of attacking my motivations.

(b) Harmful actions?

Among other things, my critics charge me with advocating censorship. Defenders
of Darwinism often invoke the Scopes trial stereotype, according
to which religious fundamentalists try to outlaw the teaching of evolution as
they did in Tennessee in the 1920s.

Thus reviewer Martin claims that I am crusading to take the teaching
of evolution out of schools. (Martin, pp. 241-242) Reviewer Coyne accuses
me of conspiring to purge evolution from American education. (Coyne,
p. 746) And reviewer Raff writes that my book has already generated at
least one state legislative bill and a number of law suits by parents to ban
textbooks that present the supposed false icons. (Raff, p. 374)

But I have never advocated the removal of evolution from the biology curriculum.
Although I am certainly in favor of revising textbooks that misrepresent the
truth, I actually want students to learn more about evolution than Darwinists
would like them to know--especially the arguments and evidence against it. It
is not I but the Darwinists who tend to be censors, opposing efforts to teach
students any criticisms of their theory.

One egregious example of Darwinian censorship occurred in 2000 and 2001 in
Burlington, Washington. High school biology teacher Roger DeHart tried to supplement
his biology textbook with articles critical of Haeckels embryos and peppered
moths from mainstream science publications such as The American Biology Teacher,
Natural History, The Scientist, and Nature. The American Civil Liberties Union
issued veiled threats of legal action, and the National Center for Science Education,
a pro-Darwin advocacy group with which reviewers Scott, Padian and Gishlick
are all affiliated, insisted that DeHart teach only orthodox Darwinism. Bowing
to the intimidation, the superintendent of DeHarts school district prohibited
him from distributing the articles--or even talking about them! DeHart was subsequently
removed from his biology teaching position. (This shameful episode is documented
in a new film, Icons of Evolution, based partly on my book. [27])

Because of the Darwinists vigorous efforts to oppose teaching students
about the falsehoods in biology textbooks, an appendix in my book includes some
sample warning labels that can be affixed to textbook figures to correct the
problems. [28]

Padian and Gishlick consider this a harmful action, and write: The thought
that anyone would encourage others to deface textbooks for ideological reasons
is chilling. (Padian & Gishlick, p. 36)

Yet my appendix specifically cautions readers that warning labels should
be applied only by, or under the direction of, the owner of the book.
In other words, a school district may use the labels on their books, but students
should not use them to deface school property. Perhaps Padian and Gishlick regard
any effort to correct textbook misrepresentations--even by the books owner--as
chilling.

Finally, I am criticized for advocating harmful political action. Raff writes:
Wells makes an explicit call for political action, quite correctly pointing
out to the reader that tax dollars pay for most of the research done by Darwinists
in America. (Raff, p. 374) And Padian and Gishlick note disapprovingly
that Wells concludes with an exhortation to activism, including organizing
Congressional hearings to stop supporting dogmatic Darwinists that misrepresent
the truth to keep themselves in power (p 242). Is this really about science
or politics? (Padian & Gishlick, p. 36)

But if tax dollars pay for most of the research done by Darwinists in
America, then science and politics are already linked. Indeed, as a biologist
myself, I periodically receive newsletters from scientific organizations boasting
about their Capitol Hill lobbying efforts, which generate hundreds of millions
of dollars every year. [29]

Now, Im not opposed to public funding for scientific research. I wrote
in my book: Research--even research on evolution--is not a bad thing.
But as we saw in several of the icons of evolution, data are frequently claimed
to support evolutionary theory even when they contradict it. Research
is good, but misrepresenting the evidence to prop up Darwinian theory--or any
other theory--is bad, and the public should not be forced to pay for it. I concluded,
in accordance with ethical standards already used in the scientific community:
Scientists who deliberately distort the evidence should be disqualified
from receiving public funds. (pp. 241, 243)

In addition to supporting Darwinian research, taxpayers also support state
universities and public school systems where their children are being fed misinformation
about the evidence for evolution. Indeed, four of my reviewers (Martin, Pigliucci,
Raff, and Padian) are professors at state universities, where salaries and benefits
are derived from tax revenues. As a taxpayer myself, I think it is legitimate
for citizens to inquire how their money is being used.

So, am I wicked? If it is harmful to oppose censorship in science education,
and to correct misrepresentations in biology textbooks, then I am a wicked man.
If it is harmful to demand truthfulness in publicly supported research and teaching,
then I am a wicked man.

Let the jury decide.

(c) Moral corruption?

All my critics season their reviews to varying degrees with attacks on my character.
At the high end of the ad hominem scale is Martin, who despite our disagreements
treats me with relative decency. At the bottom of the scale are Padian and Gishlick.

The title of Padian and Gishlicks review (The Talented Mr. Wells)
is taken from a 1999 film. The review begins: When we first meet the protagonist
of the film The Talented Mr. Ripley, he is playing piano at a rooftop party
in New York City. As the song finishes, an older man approaches and, observing
Ripleys Princeton blazer, remarks that Ripley must have been at school
with his son, Dickie. Sensing an opportunity, Ripley does not mention that the
blazer is borrowed from another guest, nor that he did not attend Princeton,
but only worked there. He merely asks, how is Dickie? This kind
of distortion, misleading by the omission of important information, is the basis
of Icons of Evolution. Its author, Jonathan Wells, appears to come from an unusually
strong academic background, but the truth is more complex. (Padian &
Gishlick, pp. 33-34)

Throughout their review, Padian and Gishlick repeatedly compare me to Ripley.
But Ripley isnt just a social climber who tells little white lies to get
ahead. In the course of the film he commits all kinds of evil, including murder.
In other words, he is a sociopath.

A sociopath. Now thats moral corruption! Wells appears to
have earned Ph.D.s from Yale and Berkeley, but the more complex
truth is that he is no better than a lying, murderous sociopath. If Padian and
Gishlick are right, I shouldnt just be stripped of my academic credentials--I
should be arrested.

But wait. On what grounds do they justify comparing me to a sociopath? First
they quote my 1994 statement about devoting my life to destroying Darwinism
(discussed above), and then they write that after obtaining a Berkeley Ph.D.
in molecular and cell biology Wells followed this with a 5-year postdoctoral
position sponsored by a retired professor in the same department at Berkeley,
during which time he seems to have performed no experiments . No peer-reviewed
publications resulted from Wellss 5-year stint. (Padian & Gishlick,
p. 34)

These statements are false. To correct them, one of the Berkeley biologists
with whom I allegedly performed no experiments and with whom I allegedly
produced no peer-reviewed publications sent the following letter
to The Quarterly Review of Biology:

May 2, 2002

The Editors
The Quarterly Review of Biology
110 Life Sciences Library
State University of New York
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5275

Dear Editors:

A book review published in your March, 2002, issue contains some factual errors
that should be corrected.

In The Talented Mr. Wells, Kevin Padian and Alan Gishlick compared
Dr. Jonathan Wells to a movie character who impersonates a Princeton graduate,
implying that Dr. Wells misrepresents his academic qualifications. Padian and
Gishlick go on to claim that while Dr. Wells was a post-doctoral researcher
at the University of California at Berkeley he seems to have performed
no experiments and that no peer-reviewed publications resulted from
Wellss 5-year stint.

Both of these claims are false. Dr. Wells and I performed numerous experiments
together in my laboratory at Berkeley while he was a post-doc. That research
resulted in two peer-reviewed papers to which we contributed as co-authors.
[A] Some of our work has even appeared in a textbook on developmental biology.
[B]

I am surprised that The Quarterly Review of Biology would publish something
with so little regard for truthfulness and professional decorum. The false claims
of Padian and Gishlick unjustly damage not only the reputation of Dr. Wells,
but also--indirectly--the reputations of those who worked with him. It seems
to me that a retraction is in order.

Sincerely,

Carolyn A. Larabell, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Berkeley, CA 94720

and

Associate Professor
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, CA 94143

cc: Professor Kevin Padian
Mr. Alan D. Gishlick

[A] Confocal Microscopy Analysis of Living Xenopus Eggs and the Mechanism
of Cortical Rotation, Development 122 (April, 1996): 1281-1289; Microtubule-mediated
organelle transport and localization of beta-catenin to the future dorsal side
of Xenopus eggs, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 94
(February, 1997): 1224-1229.

Since Padian is a Berkeley biology professor, he could easily have checked the
facts about my Berkeley post-doc before publishing his false and defamatory
statements. Maybe he did not bother to check carefully, or maybe he chose to
lie. Maybe he was negligent, or maybe he was malicious.

Personal attacks on me, however, merely expose the scientific and moral bankruptcy
of Darwinism. If Darwinists could show that my criticisms of the icons of evolution
were unwarranted, or if they would stop trying lamely to defend the icons and
simply replace them with better evidence, I would drop my case. But Darwinists
cannot defend the icons, and they cannot afford to abandon them, so they resort
to insults and smears. Is this how science is supposed to work?

TO BELIEVE, OR DISBELIEVE?

I believe in Darwinian evolution as the natural counterpart of domestic breeding--that
is, as an explanation for limited changes within existing species. I confess,
however, that I do not believe in Darwinian evolution as a general explanation
for the origin and diversification of all living things.

If my disbelief is due to ignorance, its only because I did not learn
an investigative tradition that manipulates statistics to prove
something that is clearly false. And if my disbelief is due to stupidity, its
only because I do not grasp the evidential value of using evolutionary
theory to explain away evidence that doesnt support it.

So, am I wicked? If Darwinian evolution (as a general explanation for the origin
and diversification of all living things) were true, then maybe it would be
wicked of me to reject it. But how can we know whether Darwinian evolution is
true? In science, the truth or falsity of a theory is ultimately determined
by comparing it with the evidence--not by affirming the theory in spite of the
evidence, and not by attacking people who dare to doubt it.

The case is now before the jury. The jury includes honest, hard-working scientists
who imbibed evolution from their textbooks but who havent thought much
about it since, because its irrelevant to their research. The jury includes
the roughly 90% of Americans who dont believe in Darwinism but who are
forced to pay for its domination of our educational system anyway. And--most
importantly--the jury includes students, the vast majority of whom (according
to the polls) want to hear both sides of the growing controversy over Darwins
theory. The jury may be swayed for a while by prejudiced reviews published in
prestigious science journals, or by increasingly ugly attempts at character
assassination. Ultimately, however, the jury will decide the case based on the
scientific evidence.

After all, nothing in biology--not even evolution!--makes sense except in the
light of evidence.

[5] The controversy over oxygen levels on the early Earth continues. See Nicolas
J. Beukes, Herman Dorland, Jens Gutzmer, Munetomo Nedachi, & Hiroshi Ohmoto,
Tropical laterites, life on land, and the history of atmospheric oxygen
in the Paleoproterozoic. Geology 30 (2002): 491-494.

[6] The article cited by Padian and Gishlick that contains a secondhand reference
to work on the effect of oxygen in Miller-Urey-type syntheses is B. M. Rode,
Peptides and the Origin of Life, Peptides 20 (1999): 773-786. The
secondhand reference in Rodes article is to F. Hanic & M. Morvova,
Eleventh symposium on elementary processes and chemical reactions in low temperature
plasmas. Low Tatras, Slovakia, 1998.

[10] Adam Sedwick, On the Law of Development commonly known as von Baers
Law; and on the Significance of Ancestral Rudiments in Embryonic Development,
Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science 36 (1894): 35-52.

[20] This problem has long been familiar to paleontologists concerned with
the relationship between theory and evidence. In 1974, for instance, David Kitts
observed that the claim is made that paleontology provides a direct way
to get at the major events of organic history and that, furthermore, it provides
a means of testing evolutionary theories. This claim raises the critical question
of how close we can get to evolution without presupposing some causal theory
of descent. ... [T]he paleontologist can provide knowledge that cannot be provided
by biological principles alone. But he cannot provide us with evolution.
(D.B. Kitts, Paleontology and Evolutionary Theory, Evolution 28
[1974]: 458-472, p. 466) In 1982, Keith Thomson noted: Although finding
ancestors is the traditional paleontologists proof ,
such historical events cannot be tested by assembling nice series
of fossils without discontinuities, because the evolutionary hypothesis is superficially
so powerful that any reasonably graded series of forms can be thought to have
legitimacy. In fact, there is circularity in the approach that first assumes
some sort of evolutionary relatedness and then assembles a pattern of relations
from which to argue that relatedness must be true. (K. S. Thomson, The
meanings of evolution, American Scientist 70 [1982]: 529-531, pp. 529-530)
[I am indebted to Paul Nelson for providing these references.--JW]

[21] Many biology textbooks define homology as similarity due to common ancestry,
yet claim that it is evidence for common ancestry. For example, Starr and Taggarts
Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th Edition, 1998) states that the
pattern of macroevolution--that is, change from the form of a common ancestor--is
called morphological divergence . Homology [is] a similarity in one or
more body parts in different organisms that share a common ancestor . Homologous
structures provide very strong evidence of morphological divergence. (pp.
318-319) In a section on The Evidence for Evolution in the teachers
edition of Johnsons Biology: Visualizing Life (1998), students are told
that homologous structures are structures that share a common ancestor,
and an accompanying note tells the teacher that such structures point
to a common ancestry. (p. 178) According to Campbell, Reece and Mitchells
Biology (5th Edition, 1999), similarity in characteristics resulting from
common ancestry is known as homology, and such anatomical signs of evolution
are called homologous structures. Comparative anatomy is consistent with all
other evidence in testifying [to] evolution. (p. 424) Raven and Johnsons
Biology (5th Edition, 1999), in a section titled The evidence for macroevolution
is extensive, includes the following: Homology: Many organisms exhibit
organs that are similar in structure to those in a recent common ancestor. This
is evidence of evolutionary relatedness. A few pages later, the same textbook
explicitly defines homologous structures as structures with different
appearances and functions that all derived from the same body part in a common
ancestor. (pp. 412, 416) Audesirk, Audesirk and Byerss Life On Earth
(2nd Edition, 2000) calls homology evidence of relatedness in a
section titled Comparative Anatomy Provides Structural Evidence of Evolution.
The textbook tells students: Internally similar structures are called
homologous structures, meaning that they have the same evolutionary origin despite
possible differences in function. Studies of comparative anatomy have long been
used to determine the relationships among organisms, on the grounds that the
more similar the internal structures of two species, the more closely related
the species must be, that is, the more recently they must have diverged from
a common ancestor. (p. 236)

[28] The warning labels and various other materials are also available on my
web site, http://www.iconsofevolution.com.

[29] The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology puts out
a bimonthly FASEB news, which focuses primarily on funding issues
and lobbying efforts. The American Society for Cell Biology puts out a monthly
ASCB Newsletter, which includes a public policy briefing that deals
mainly with lobbying efforts. In August 1999 and March 2002, the ASCB sent letters
to officials in Kansas and Ohio, respectively, urging that these states resist
efforts to include alternatives to Darwinian evolution in their science teaching
standards.

[30] Professor Larabells letter is included here with her permission.
Lest Padian now unleash his fury on her, I hasten to point out that she is not
responsible for my heretical views on Darwinism. On May 20, 2002, The Quarterly
Review

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